Hard Cold Winter

A Van Shaw Novel

By: Glen Erik Hamilton

Narrated by: R.C. Bray

Former Army Ranger and thief Van Shaw is thrust into danger as lethal and unpredictable as the war he left behind in this emotionally powerful and gritty follow-up to the acclaimed Past Crimes.

When an old crony of Van Shaw's late grandfather calls in a favor, the recently discharged Ranger embarks on a dangerous journey to the Olympic Mountains, in search of a missing girl tied to Van's own criminal past. What he finds instead is a brutal murder scene, including a victim from one of Seattle's most influential families.

But the dead bodies are only the start of Van's troubles. A fellow Ranger from Afghanistan turns up at Van's doorstep, seeking support from his former sergeant even as Van wrestles with his own reemerging symptoms of PTSD. The murder investigation leads to heavy pressure, with a billionaire businessman on one side and vicious gangsters on the other, each willing to play dirty to get what they want.

The price of his survival may be too high, demanding moral compromises that could destroy Van's relationship with his iron-willed girlfriend, Luce. And when a trusted friend's betrayal pushes him to the edge, Van has to enlist help from some unexpected places - including someone he believed was lost forever.

The Ranger will need every ally he can get. A powerful, unseen player is about to unleash a firestorm on Seattle that will burn Van and his people to ashes - and it will take a miracle to stop it.

©2016 Glen Erik Hamilton (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Fan

Fantastic narrator, for a great book! So glad l own it, will collect them all

Van Shaw

I liked the building of the characters and the the theme of the story. I would recommend this book.

Good one for the series but not great

Slow moving sometimes but overall the narrator is fantastic and the characters are interesting. I loved the first book better.

Twisty? Nope, Stupor-ifically Complicated

Reeeeely disappointed! Three problems:

1 Reader R.C. Bray starts off with an over-the-top tough guy snarl leaving nowhere to go but down. What happened to the subtle interpretation of Jeff Harding in introducing us to Van Shaw and his crew in "Past Crimes"?
2 Do NOT attempt to listen to this book if you haven't first heard "Past Crimes". This isn't a sequel, it's Part 1b.
3 Complications are distractions, not twists..

Sadly Glen Erick Hamilton is a one hit wonder. Everything in the first book that made the protagonist Van Shaw intriguing is gone in hopes, I suppose, of creating a single dimensional tough guy action hero. He's become a bobble-head action figure. The first novel reverse-engineered a clever caper through the voices of a slightly looney crew of Irish/American rascals. This thing abandons all of that delicate plotting and characterization to maybe snag a movie contract? A BAD movie contract. I'd call Hamilton's characters one-dimensional only because I can't think of a lower number... .5 dimensional? .2 dimensional? Or maybe minus numbers dimensional?

It takes about 700 hundred hours of sucky anti-climatic epilogue for Hamilton to end this thing. But, worst... is that Van Shaw becomes duller than the shine on an indigent's shoes.

This is the first novel I ever pre-ordered as a result of my enthusiasm over "Past Crimes". It will become the last Erik Shaw novel I buy unless I develop throbbing insomnia. Even that will not make me again listen to R.C. Bray unless his work comes favorably pre-reviewed by reviewers I trust.

Save cold hard cash by skipping "Cold Hard Winter."